The Night Before Christmas
by Ronja-R
Summary: Fluffly little Christmas story.


A little Christmas piece I wrote like a month ago 'cause I wanted to do something with Chuck and Blair as a couple. Which I've ended up doing with my other series now anyway… I also decided I wanted to try and go for something really fluffy. Normally I try to avoid it, but I thought it could be fun to go all in and bring the fluff.

Last episode seen was **310**, so I don't know if this goes with what happens in the two other episodes that have aired this season. Hopefully it won't clash too much.

Also, I was going to proof read this today but haven't had the time… Hopefully there aren't any spelling or grammatical errors, and the whole thing makes sense. If not, I'll have to do adjustments later this week =)

Hope you will enjoy the read!

* * *

Quietly Blair opened the door to the Empire penthouse and stepped inside. It was close to midnight, and the place was almost completely dark. The Christmas star she had insisted upon having in the window was still lit, but it was clear that Chuck had gone to bed already.

Trying to make as little noise as she could she stepped out of her shoes and hung up her coat. She then unceremoniously undressed on the spot and fished out a negligee from the bag she had brought with her, pulling it over her head before putting her clothes in the bag.

The penthouse bore little evidence to the fact that it was late Christmas Eve. Blair loved decorations and had wanted to deck the place out until it more or less looked like Santa's workshop but Chuck had told her in no uncertain terms that whatever ornaments she put up would be gone by the next time she walked through the door. He had refused her wish to have a Christmas tree by referring to hotel policy, which had prompted Blair to comment that since she happened to know the owner she was confident they could get him to look the other way. But no dice. The star in the window had been the only thing that had been put out, after Blair said she refused to set foot in the place until January if there wasn't at least one Christmas decoration there.

She silently opened the door to the bedroom, stepped inside and closed the door behind her. He wasn't expecting her. They had talked at length about what they would do for Christmas, and ended up with separate plans. Blair had been looking forward to her father coming to New York ever since he had called in late October to tell her he was coming for the holidays. He had arrived two days ago with Roman, and together with Blair's mother and Cyrus they had spent Christmas Eve going ice skating, eating a lovely dinner and doing some caroling by the piano. Their plans for Christmas Day were pretty traditional this year. Opening presents by the tree, enjoying a wonderful Christmas dinner and watching some of Blair's favorite Christmas movies. She had invited Chuck to join them right from the start but he had declined her offer. She had been a bit put off at first, demanding to know what plans he could possibly have that would trump a Christmas with his girlfriend, and he had said he had promised Eric and Lily to join them for Christmas.

It hadn't taken Blair long to find out that he was only planning on attending dinner on Christmas Day, and only after Eric had more or less begged him to come. Blair could understand his hesitance to spend the holidays with his adoptive family, since that would also mean spending it with the likes of the Humphreys, and Christmas seemed like the one time of year when one should be spared such indignity. It was supposed to be the time of miracles, not mediocrity. But when she had then invited him again to spend Christmas Eve and everything but dinner on Christmas Day with her and her parents he had declined once more.

The truth was he simply didn't want to partake in any family celebrations. She knew Christmas wasn't anything special in his eyes, and that the one last year had been extremely bad, but she couldn't understand why he would want to be all alone rather than be with those who cared about him. He couldn't make her understand that he didn't feel like he had a family of his own, and he would hate the feeling of intruding on another family's Christmas. And he was a little nervous meeting Blair's father again for the first time since he had become Blair's boyfriend.

Harold knew very well who he was, but knew him as the troublemaking, partying bad influence he had been most of his life, and those were hardly the qualities a father looked for in a partner for their daughter. Blair had gotten angry with him when he found numerous excuses not to come say hello to her father but he had promised he would see him after Christmas. He didn't want Blair's holiday to be tainted by her father's disapproving of her boyfriend, if that ended up being Harold's reaction. They could deal with that once all the presents were opened, all the food had been eaten and all the obligatory cheerfulness had passed.

He felt a bit bad about lying to her about having business to attend to over the two days she had invited him to spend with her family. He had made up some story about a business deal with a group of Chinese entrepreneurs who could care less that the western world was celebrating a holiday and she had bought it, albeit with some skepticism. He didn't want her to feel like she had to offer to ditch her family in favor of spending Christmas with him at the penthouse. He knew how much she loved this holiday, and how excited she was to spend it with her father. He couldn't take that away from her, and he didn't want her to feel torn about it. He had agreed to have lunch at her mother's penthouse on Boxing Day and eventually she had settled for that arrangement.

He had gone to bed early on Christmas Eve, more or less just waiting for the holidays to hurry up and be over already. He hadn't heard Blair come in, and she tiptoed across the room and climbed into bed without waking him up. He was lying on his side, facing away from her, and she placed a gentle kiss on his cheek as she spooned him and wrapped her left arm around him. He stirred in his sleep and turned his head, looking at her with confusion through sleepy eyes.

"Merry Christmas" she whispered softly.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I couldn't be apart from you any longer."

He turned around so that he was facing her and put his arms around her as she draped her left leg over him. He kissed her tenderly and held her near, their noses nearly touching as they let their heads rest on the same pillow.

"I wasn't expecting you" he said softly.

"I know" she replied in the same soft tone he spoke in. It felt out of place to speak with anything other than soft voices. "I wanted to wish you a happy Christmas."

"I got just what I wanted this year" he smiled and gently caressed her cheek.

"Now you tell me, after I spent ages trying to find the perfect gift for you" she joked. "Oh, hang on a second."

He grunted in protest as she pulled away from him and skipped out of bed. He watched her leave the room and come back half a minute later with her iPod. He shook his head at her passion for the holiday when she placed the device in the speakers and started up her Christmas playlist, which contained an impressive collection of songs that all seemed to make her incredibly nostalgic for Christmases past. He wasn't very fond of Christmas music, but he would listen to anything if it put that smile on her face.

She then went to her nightstand and found a lighter, which she used to light the tea-lights in decorative holders on both their nightstands. He watched her put the lighter away and enjoyed the sight of her in the soft lighting the candles provided. No matter how often he saw her like that he never grew tired of it.

She crawled back into bed and he wrapped her in his covers as they fell back into the same position they had been in before she got up. She kissed him lovingly and he noted that for the first time he could remember that he not only felt a touch of Christmas spirit, but also felt genuinely happy on Christmas. And all thanks to her, naturally.

"Tell me…" he said and gently moved a strain of hair from her face. "What is this love of the holiday all about? What about it makes you glow like this?"

"I just love it" she said, unable to put the feeling into words. "All the pretty decorations, the music, the candles…"

"Yes I can't believe I never knew you had such a fascination for candles while we were just friends. If it were up to you we would never use another light bulb again."

She smiled and kissed him again. It was true, she loved candles, especially in the bedroom. After a while, "get the lighter" had even become a code phrase for Chuck to initiate sex. He had to admit it was lovely to make love lit only by countless candles, but he didn't quite share her fascination with them. He had been comically surprised the first couple of times she came back from a shopping trip happily showcasing some new candle she had bought, but after a few months he had insisted that they use tea-lights in the bedroom. The last thing he wanted to do after sex was to remember to blow out all the candles, and he hated it when she left his side in bed to go snuff out the lights. The tea-lights took care of themselves, an arrangement that worked much better.

"And I love the food" she continued after giving him another long kiss. "The smell of a Christmas tree. The excitement of finding the perfect gifts for everyone, and of course of getting to open your own."

"Something tells me you're just like a little child on Christmas morning" Chuck laughed and stroke her cheek with his thumb.

"There might have been others who have made similar comments…" she said and laughed. "I can't help it! It's just so exhilarating. And I love how it brings the family back together, and everyone is happy and smiling, and people are being so nice…"

He nodded slightly, not really seeing the magic but loving the fact that she so clearly did. He suspected that a large part of her love for Christmas came from memories of wonderful holiday seasons in the past. No matter how busy Eleanor and Harold were they always seemed to be able to set aside time for Christmas, and he suspected that knowing that there were two days every year when she was guaranteed to have her family home had meant the world to Blair when she was growing up.

She grabbed his right arm and lifted his hand up to kiss it, while her fingers played with the heart pin she had sewn on to the sleeve of his pajamas yesterday before he had gotten home. She had spent months wondering what to sew it onto, since he never seemed to wear anything often enough for it to be worth having her pin on. Then she had thought of his favorite pajamas. She realized she loved the idea of him wearing her pin when he slept, especially during the nights they spent apart. She hadn't spend last night with him so she hadn't been there to see him discover it, but his smile when she let her fingers play with it told her exactly what he thought of her extra Christmas gift.

He took her hand in his own and played with her fingers a bit. Then he gently kissed each of her fingers before letting go of her hand, which she let softly caress his cheek and then bury itself in his hair. He wrapped his arm around her again and pulled her yet a little closer. They looked into each other's eyes, for a moment content to just exist in each other's presence. She caressed his neck with her hand, resisting the urge to kiss him again. She could spend the entire night doing nothing but just that, but there was plenty of time for that later. Right now she wanted to explore one of the dark areas left on her map when it came to him. She knew him so well, but there was still uncharted territory every here and there, and the mood was just right for a heart to heart.

"You don't like Christmas at all, do you?" she asked, even though they both knew the answer.

He shook his head no and when she gently asked him why he pondered answering evasively. The last thing he wanted was to rob the holiday of any of the magic it held for her. But he wanted a life with her, a real life, and sooner or later she would have to know why he disliked this time of year so much. He might as well tell her now.

"It just… was never a good time around the Bass residence" he said. "My father didn't really care about it at all. Maybe it was too hard for him to celebrate Christmas without my mother. If she was anything like you when it came to love of Christmas then it must have brought back a lot of difficult memories for him. He wasn't even home every Christmas, I remember at least three years when he wasn't around and I spent it with the servants and whatever nanny or au pair we had at the time. When he was around he would usually buy me stuff, but never the things I actually wanted. He just had no clue… We rarely had decorations, except for one year when I had a new nanny who was all about the holiday cheer. She decorated the place like you wouldn't believe."

"Actually I think I remember that" Blair said. "She must have been the one who forced you to come caroling with Nate and me. She made us hot coco when we got back and told us this long story about the miracle of Christmas."

"She was hell" Chuck said. "It was far too much. My father fired her when he came home on Christmas Day and saw what she had done around the place."

"Well I guess I can't fault you for not liking Christmas…" Blair said. "I promise I will take it slow with you. This year we have the star, next year we'll add some more decorations, in a year or two I'll bring you along when Serena and I make candles the first weekend of December."

"God, you even _make_ the things?"

She giggled and kissed him. He pulled her a little closer and wished he could tell her how glad he was that she had come.

"The offer still stands for tomorrow" she told him gently. "I know you made up some story about a business meeting and I get why you did… But if you want to you know you are more than welcome to join us."

He marveled at how she kept finding ways of making him love her more whenever he believed he loved her as much as possible. She had seen right through his lie and she had accepted it. She was wonderful.

"I really do appreciate the offer" he told her. "But I think I'll still pass. It's your favorite day, you should spend it with your family. I don't want to intrude."

"Intrude? You're part of the family."

"To you I might be. I'm not so sure about the other four people who have a say in the matter. In fact I think your father might disapprove of me. To him I've always been Nate's delinquent friend. The upgrade to boyfriend might not sit too well with Harold."

"He asked about you today" Blair told him. "He said he had been hoping to see you at dinner. He doesn't seem to dislike you Chuck, but I will admit he did express an interest in reviewing you as a boyfriend rather than a friend."

"That makes me nervous."

"You know what Mom said? She told him she was glad that you were her future son-in-law. Which was really sweet, except Dad choked on his ham because he thought you and I were getting married already."

Chuck laughed a little.

"When I propose to you I will have asked for his permission first. You can tell him that, so he won't be startled again."

"You could tell him yourself" Blair smiled. "Oh, and Cyrus said he missed you. He said you and Aaron should both have been there and it wasn't really a proper Christmas without you. Him and Mom think you're great, you know. Dad and Roman will too, once they get to spend time with you."

"It's a little different with your father though than it is with Cyrus" Chuck pointed out. "Cyrus didn't raise you, it's not his little girl I do… ungodly things to behind closed doors. And he didn't know me back when I was at my wildest."

"When it comes to my dad, all it would take is for him to see how happy you make me, and he will love you."

"I hope you're right" Chuck said and softly kissed her. "But I still think we should save that particular meeting for Boxing Day just in case we don't have a Christmas miracle happen. Besides, I get you every other day of the year, let your father fuss about you while he's in town."

"But I'll miss you."

"How about you come back here tomorrow night? We can order up some hot cider, you can wear something that I can unwrap…"

"That sounds lovely" she agreed. "But I want to be with you all day."

"I'm just not ready for a family Christmas" he said. "I might be welcome, but I'd still feel like a bit of an outsider. I'd rather be here and wait for you to come at night. Maybe next year I can come to your mother's."

"I have a better idea" Blair said and ran her hair through his bangs. "Starting next year we should make our own traditions."

"I like what we're doing right now…"

She laughed happily and ran her hand through his hair once more. She could never get enough of his mere presence. What an incredible difference from the year before, when she had gone to bed on Christmas Eve unable to enjoy the holiday, not knowing where he was, what he was doing or _how_ he was doing. That year none of her favorite things about Christmas had been able to put a genuine smile on her face. This year everything had been the way she wanted it to be around Christmas, but her happiest moment, and the moment that felt the most like Christmas, was this moment with him.

"When we have children someday," she said, "I want them to love Christmas as least as much as I do. No matter what's going on with our careers, no matter what's going on in the world, at Christmas the world should just come to a halt and we should be together, doing everything we can to make each Christmas better than the last. I'm talking about all of us here. Serena, Nate, Eric… Anyone else we might care about… Everyone should just forget about the things they think are important during the rest of the year and make it all about family, and happiness and love."

"My, my… This combination of burning candles and Christmas music is making you a visionary."

"Can't you just imagine it? How great we could make Christmas for our kids? I know Nate always wanted a more intimate celebration rather than those big Vanderbilt gatherings his mother always insisted upon going to. Serena never knew in advance if she would have a good Christmas or not, it always depended on whether or not Lily was seeing someone, and whether or not he was interested in making the holidays special. It seems I'm the only one who's had consistently good holiday seasons over the years and I want us all to make sure we aim for the kind of Christmases I had, rather than the kind the rest of you had."

"Fine, but aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself? For now let's just enjoy the fact that we are here together tonight." He gave her another kiss. "I really didn't expect you to show up. I thought you would be at your mother's until the end of the weekend. You have no idea how special it is to me that you're here."

"You're supposed to spend Christmas with those you love…" she said. "So how could I not be with the one I love the most?"

He looked at her with an intensity that had almost scared her when they first started going out. He couldn't understand that she was really saying that to him, that she was there in his arms, that he belonged to someone.

"I love you too" he whispered. "These past six months… They have meant more to me than you will ever know. This year started at such a low point for me and it turned into the most wonderful year of my life. And it's all thanks to you…"

"It's because of _us_" she corrected him. "Sometimes I've asked myself why on earth we waited so long to be together when we knew we belonged just the way we are right now. Then I remember that all the ups and downs and twists and turns served their purpose. We dealt with all the insecurities and the fear before we gave ourselves to each other. You were right last fall when you said we wouldn't last. We probably wouldn't have if we had tried to be together back then. But this summer…"

"This summer we both knew that we wanted this more than anything" he finished. "That the only way we could live was together."

"I never in my life thought I would hear Chuck Bass say things like that" she said and couldn't hold back a little laugh. "You hid your inner sap well over the years. But I'm thankful for what we are. I wouldn't change a thing between us."

"Good" he said.

She kissed him once more. When their lips were about to part he pressed his against hers with more hunger and ran his right hand through her hair to the back of her head, pressing her closer to him. She opened her mouth for his tongue and slowly shifted over to lie on her back with his upper body resting on her.

"Where's the remote?" he mumbled. "Hearing Donna Summer sing '_Oh Holy Night_' when I'm about to love you in a way Christendom frowns upon before marriage makes me feel a bit… distracted."

She chuckled and reached for the remote while he sat up to take off his sleepwear. The room went silent and all they could hear was the sound of their breaths. He leaned over her and kissed her with love and desire. They both felt they had reached the point where they couldn't express what they needed to express through words. Luckily for them, they knew of different ways to express them.

-

Early the next morning they got out of bed and took a long, hot shower together. Chuck wrapped himself in a robe and Blair got dressed, knowing she was starting to run a little late for breakfast at her mother's. She got as far as the door before she realized she would be a lot late, as she kept telling herself "just one more kiss…" Chuck mumbled things in her ear that she could barely make out, but that didn't matter. She hated leaving, even though he said he was more than fine being on his own for the day.

"In fact…" he told her between kisses, "it's not… the hours by myself… that will be a bummer… It's… having to have dinner… with the damn Humphreys…"

"Don't curse on Christmas" Blair mumbled. "I miss you already…"

"I know… But you should go before Harold really has a reason to hate me."

She started laughing and was finally able to tear herself from his embrace. She put on her coat and shoes and he put her red Christmas hat on her head and leaned in to kiss her again.

"No, no more" she said. "If you start with me again I'll never be able to leave. See you in… far too many hours."

"Have a great day" he said. "And thank you again… for last night. You just made this Christmas the first I want to remember for… well, as long as I can remember."

"It's only the first of many memorable Christmases" she assured him and smiled. "Now be a good boy today and try not to agitate too many Humphreys."

"How many is too many?"

She thought about it.

"Four."

"There are only three of them."

"I know" she said cheerfully. "Bye now."

He watched her go and shook his head with a laugh. Then he walked into the bedroom to replace the candles that had burned out while they were asleep. No doubt they would be lighting new ones tonight.

* * *

Happy Christmas everyone!


End file.
